द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

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CHAPTER I
THE CLOUDS GATHER (1920)
THE annual session of the Indian National Congress met at
Amritsar in the Punjab in December 1919, under the shadow
of the atrocities perpetrated there earlier in the year. In spite
of the opposition of Mr. C. R. Das, Mr. B. C. Pál and Mr.
B. Chakravarti, the Bengal leaders, a resolution was passed
in favour of working the New Constitution (called the
Government of India Act, 1919) and thanking the Secretary
of State for India, Mr. Montagu, who had played so im-
portant a part in launching it. Mr. Gandhi, who had been
largely responsible for the decision arrived at by the Amritsar
Congress, welcomed the Royal proclamation announcing the
assent to the Government of India Act, 1919, and in his
weekly paper, Young India, he wrote on December 31st,
1919: 'The reforms Act coupled with the Proclamation is an
earnest of the intention of the British people to do justice
to India and it ought to remove suspicion on that score. . . .
Our duty therefore is not to subject the Reforms to carping
criticism but to settle down quietly to work so as to make
them a success.'
But during the next nine months events moved with
dramatic suddenness. What actually happened can best be
described in the words of Mr. Gandhi himself. When he was
tried by a British Judge, Mr. Broomfield, in March 1922, for
writing seditious articles in his paper, Mr. Gandhi made a
remarkable statement in the course of which he explained
why after having co-operated with the British Government
all his life, he was ultimately forced to turn against it. Therein
he said: 'The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt
Act, a law designed to rob the people of all real freedom. I
felt called upon to lead an intensive agitation against it.
Then followed the Punjab horrors beginning with the massacre
at Jallianwalla Bagh (in Amritsar) and culminating in crawling
49 D

50 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
orders, public floggings and other indescribable humiliations.
I discovered, too, that the plighted word of the Prime Minister
to the Mussalmans of India regarding the integrity of Turkey
and the holy places of Islam was not likely to be fulfilled.
But in spite of the foreboding and the grave warnings of
friends, at the Amritsar Congress in 1919, I fought for
co-operation and working the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms,
hoping the Prime Minister would redeem his promise to the
Indian Mussalmans, that the Punjab wound would be healed
and that the Reforms, inadequate and unsatisfactory though
they were, marked a new era of hope in the life of India.
But all that hope was shattered. The Khilafat promise was
not to be redeemed. The Punjab crime was whitewashed
and most culprits were not only unpunished but remained
in service and some continued to draw pensions from the
Indian revenue, and in some cases were even rewarded. I
saw, too, that not only did the reforms not mark a change of
heart, but they were only a method of further draining India
of her wealth and of prolonging her servitude.'
As already indicated in Section III of the Introduction on
'The New Awakening in India,' the new legislation, popularly
known as the Rowlatt Act,¹ was enacted on March 18th, 1919,
for conferring permanently on the Government of India
extraordinary powers for the arrest of individuals and their
imprisonment without trial, when the war-time emergency
ordinances lapsed. In February, 1919, Mr. Gandhi started
an agitation against the Rowlatt (or 'Black') Bill when it was
introduced in the Imperial Legislative Council.² In trying to
suppress this agitation in the Punjab, indescribable atrocities
were perpetrated by the forces of the Crown. At Jallianwalla
Bagh in Amritsar on April 13th, there was a massacre of
unarmed men, women and children who had gathered on the
occasion of a public meeting. This was followed by a reign
of terror under Martial Law, in the course of which many
people were publicly flogged, while others were forced to
crawl on their bellies when passing along certain streets.
¹ According to Sir Surendranath Bannerji, 'the Rowlatt Act was the
parent of the Non-co-operation movement.' (A Nation in Making, London,
1927, p. 300.)
² Now called the Indian Legislative Assembly.

THE CLOUDS GATHER 51
Two committees were appointed to inquire into these
incidents and submit a report—a non-official committee .
appointed by the Indian National Congress and an official
committee appointed by the Government of India, called
the Hunter Committee. The Congress Enquiry Committee
published unimpeachable evidence of the most brutal atro-
cities committed by the forces of the Crown, including
outrages on helpless women. The findings of the Hunter
Committee did not go as far as those of the Congress Enquiry
Committee, nevertheless, they were sufficiently damaging
for any government. After the publication of these two
reports the public naturally expected that in view of the
new era to be ushered in by the Constitutional Reforms, the
Government of India would take courage in both hands
and punish the wrong-doers, while granting adequate com-
pensation for all those who had been killed or injured or had
been otherwise made to suffer.
By the middle of 1920 it was clear, however, that the
Government of India did not propose to take any such
action.¹ The attitude and conduct of the Government appeared
to the public eye as tantamount to condoning all the inhuman
atrocities that had been perpetrated. This created a revulsion
of feeling all over the country, even in circles favourably
disposed towards the Government and the New Constitution.
There can be little doubt that if the Government of Lord
Chelmsford, the then Viceroy and Governor-General of
India, had in 1920, taken drastic action against the authors
of the Punjab atrocities, the confirmed 'Co-operator,'
Mr. Gandhi, would not have been forced to the path of
non-co-operation, nor would the Indian National Congress
have set aside the resolution adopted at the Amritsar Session
in December, 1919. Thus, on the rock of Jallianwalla Bagh
¹ In the Imperial Legislative Council an Indemnity Act was passed in
order to protect all the officers who had taken part in the Punjab atrocities.
Besides the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, Sir Michael O'Dwyer,
was untouched, and General Dyer, who was responsible for the Jallianwalla
Bagh massacre and for the administration of Martial Law, was merely
declared unfit for future service in India. Even the meagre action taken
by the Government was disapproved by the House of Lords and unpre-
cedented public subscriptions were raised in England for the authors of the
Punjab tragedy.

52 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
was wrecked the ship of co-operation built by the Secretary
of State for India, Mr. Montagu, through his sympathetic
gestures and his elaborate intrigues during his visit to India
in 1917-18.
It is an open secret that while Mr. Montagu and Lord
Chelmsford were touring India with a view to preparing
their joint memorandum on the new constitutional reforms,
the former was engaged in rallying public support in favour
of working the New Constitution. Before he left India in
1918, Mr. Montagu succeeded in definitely winning over
the Moderate section in the Indian National Congress.
When the Indian National Congress met at a special session
in Bombay in 1918 to consider the Montagu-Chelmsford
Report, the Moderate Congressmen who were then being
led by Sir Surendranath Bannerji and Mr. Srinivasa Sastri,
absented themselves and soon after they seceded from
the Congress and formed a separate political party under
the name of the All-India Liberal Federation, pledged to
work the New Reforms. The Special Congress at Bombay
in 1918 pronounced the Montagu-Chelmsford Report as
unacceptable. Nevertheless, in December, 1919, the Amritsar
Congress resolved to work the constitution drafted on the
basis of that report and also thanked Mr. Montagu. Thus,
in spite of all the unfortunate events of 1919, Mr. Montagu
was able through his personal influence, to keep the Congress
back from the path of opposition. It was only the Government
of India's attitude towards the Punjab atrocities that proved
to be the proverbial last straw.
A British politician in 1934 will naturally inquire why
attempts were not made in 1920 to win over the Moslem
Community when it was apparent that the Indian National
Congress was heading towards an oppositionist policy. On
this point, Mr. Montagu was not inactive and he did his
level best to influence the British Cabinet, but the odds were
against him. During the Great War, Indian Mohammedans
had expressed their uneasiness as to what the policy of
Britain towards Turkey would be when the time came for
discussing peace-terms. To placate them the British Prime
Minister, Mr. Lloyd George, had made a conciliatory state-

THE CLOUDS GATHER 53
ment on January 5th, 1918, in which he said, among other
things, that Great Britain would not pursue a vindictive
policy and had no intention of depriving the Turks of the
rich lands of Asia Minor and Thrace which were pre-
dominantly Turkish. At the end of the war, however, when
it was clear that the Allies were aiming at nothing less than
the complete dismemberment of Turkey, a deputation of
Indian Moslems was sent to Europe in March, 1920, to plead
the cause of the Turks. This deputation which was led by
Moulana Mohammed Ali, the younger of the Ali brothers,
failed to achieve anything in spite of the best efforts of Mr.
Montagu, the Secretary of State for India. By the middle
of 1920, Indian Moslems began to feel that in all probability
Turkey would cease to exist as an independent state—that the
head of the Islamic Church, the Khalifa, who was also the
Sultan of Turkey, would be deprived of his territories in
Europe and in Asia and that the Holy Places of Islam would
pass into non-Moslem hands. The realisation of this un-
avoidable calamity produced a blaze of resentment among
every section of the Moslem Community in India. But
however deep their resentment might be, they were not in a
position to take up arms against the victorious British
Government. Therefore all that they could think of doing
was to oppose the working of the New Constitution.
About the middle of 1920, anti-British feeling was stronger
among the Moslems than among the rest of the Indian
population. Mr. Montagu had been able to divide the
nationalist forces but he had failed to win over any section
of the 'Moslems, though he had left no stone unturned
in his efforts to placate them and had ultimately to resign
from the Cabinet for ventilating their grievances.¹ An
organisation was set up by the Moslems under the name of
the All-India Khilafat Committee with the object of restoring
¹ In 1922 the Government of India urged on the British Cabinet that
the Indian demand for the revision of the Treaty of Sèvres should be
made public. The chief items of that demand were—restoration of Asia
Minor and Thrace to the Turks; suzerainty of the Sultan over the Holy
Places and the evacuation of Constantinople by the Allied troops. Mr.
Montagu thought that he had been authorised by the Cabinet to give
publicity to the demand—but as the Cabinet disowned him, he had to
resign.

54 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
to the 'Khalifa,' the head of the Islamic Church, the temporal
power which he had enjoyed as Sultan of Turkey before the
Great War. The leadership of this Khilafat movement was
assumed by the Ali brothers, Moulana Mohammed Ali, the
younger but more influential, and Moulana Shaukat Ali, the
elder. Both of them were Oxford graduates. Moulana
Mohammed Ali had been a journalist and Moulana Shaukat
Ali a highly-paid officer in the Excise Department of the
Government of India. During the war both of them had been
interned for carrying on propaganda against the British Gov-
ernment and in favour of the Turks. The agitation following
in the wake of their incarceration had made them prominent
in the public eye and when the Khilafat movement began, it
was natural that they should be invested with the crown of
leadership. Moreover, their dress and mode of life, shaped
according to orthodox Moslem ideas, made a strong appeal
to the Moslem masses and served to make them tremendously
popular.
The Punjab atrocities and their sequel made a rebel of the
once loyal Mr. Gandhi. He who had pleaded for co-operation
at Amritsar in December, 1919, and had succeeded in carrying
the Congress with him, was in 1920 collecting his forces for
leading a revolt against the British Government. Before he
returned to India in 1914, he had tried the method of passive
resistance in South Africa, in his fight for the rights of
Indians against the South African Government and had
found it extremely helpful. In February, 1919, before the
Rowlatt Bills-became law, he had started an agitation on the
same lines, called the 'Satyagraha'¹ movement, against the
Bills—but the agitation had proved to be abortive for the
time being, because of the outbreak of violence. He was,
however, fully prepared to use the same method once again in
¹ 'Satyagraha' means literally 'persistence in truth.' It has been trans-
lated variously as non-co-operation, passive resistance, civil-disobedience,
civil-resistance. The Satyagraha pledge was first taken at a public meeting
in Johannesburg in South Africa, on September 11th, 1906, against the
Asiatic Law Amendment Ordinance. According to Mr. Gandhi, Satyagraha
eschews the use of violence in every form and has not the remotest idea
of injuring the opponent. Mr. Gandhi states in his preface to Satyagraha
in South Africa that before 1919 he had occasion to experiment with
Satyagraha five times in India.

THE CLOUDS GATHER 55
organising a non-violent revolt against the British Govern-
ment. He had disciplined his body and mind for a life of
suffering. He had, moreover, brought with him a group of
loyal followers from South Africa and during his six years'
stay in India, had won many supporters for his cause. He
only wanted more allies in order to be able to capture the
leadership of the Indian National Congress. About this
time the Ali brothers and other Moslem leaders were pre-
paring to launch the Khilafat movement and they, too, were
looking out for allies. Nothing could please them more than
to find that the premier nationalist organisation of the country
would take up the cause of Turkey. So an alliance was at
once struck between Mr. Gandhi and the Ali brothers on the
basis of two issues, viz., the Punjab atrocities and the Khilafat
grievances. The Ali brothers and their followers while
keeping up a separate organisation—the All-India Khilafat
Committee—would join the Indian National Congress and
agitate for the redress of the Punjab and Khilafat wrongs and
for the attainment of political freedom, which was the only
guarantee against such wrongs in future. On the other
hand, the Indian National Congress would lend its full
support to the Khilafat organisations in the country and
agitate for the redress of the Khilafat or Turkish grievances.¹
The elections to the legislatures under the new Con-
stitution—called the Government of India Act, 1919—were
due in November, 1920. The Amritsar Congress had resolved
in December, 1919, to work this Constitution but in the
meantime public opinion had changed considerably. A
special session of the Congress was therefore summoned in
Calcutta in September, 1920, under the presidency of Lala
Lajpat Rai, the well-known Punjab leader. Mr. Gandhi was
fully aware that his new policy of opposition to the reformed
constitution would not be accepted by an influential section
in the Congress. He had, therefore, strengthened himself
¹ In November, 1919, a Khilafat Conference was held in Delhi composed
of both Hindus and Moslems under the guidance of Mr. Gandhi, to consider
what steps should be taken to help the cause of the Khalifa (who was also
the Sultan of Turkey). At this conference, Moulana Hasrat Mohani, an
influential Moslem, suggested the boycott of British goods while Mr.
Gandhi proposed non-co-operation with the Government. It was not till
1920, however, that the Khilafat Movement was actually launched.

56 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
by an alliance with the Moslem leaders and the All-India
Khilafat Committee. In fact, he was so sure of his position
in the country that if the Congress had rejected his plan of
non-violent non-co-operation, he could have launched his
campaign with the support of the Khilafat organisations.
Matters did not, however, come to such a pass. Besides the
Moslem leaders, Mr. Gandhi had a powerful ally in Pandit
Motilal Nehru, the leading advocate of Allahabad and the
leader of the United Provinces. The opposition to Mr.
Gandhi's plan was sponsored by Mr. C. R. Das, the leading
advocate of Calcutta and the leader of Bengal and Pandit
Malaviya and Mrs. Besant, both ex-Presidents of the Con-
gress, who had influential support from many provinces.
Shortly before the Calcutta Congress, Lokamanya Tilak died.
He was the only possible rival of Mr. Gandhi and at the
time of his death, one could not say definitely what attitude
he would take up if he were to attend the Calcutta Congress.
At the Amritsar Congress he had taken up a middle position
between Mr. Gandhi's proposal of co-operation and Mr. B.
C. Pal, Mr. B. Chakravarti, and Mr. C. R. Das's proposal of
opposition. Lokamanya Tilak held that the proper attitude
should be one of responsive co-operation. In other words,
the Congress should accept and work what was useful and
beneficial in the New Constitution and reject what was use-
less or harmful. The closest followers of Lokamanya Tilak
have declared since his death that he adhered to this view
till the time of his death. Throughout his public career
Lokamanya Tilak had been the leader of the Left Wing of
the Indian National Congress called the Extremists or
Nationalists—as opposed to the Right Wing, called the
Moderates or Liberals. He was a man of profound erudition
and unbounded courage and sacrifice. His six years' incar-
ceration in a far-off Burma prison had brought him additional
lustre and popularity and if he had pitted himself against
Mr. Gandhi at the Calcutta Congress, the position of the
latter would have been a difficult one. With L. Tilak's
death, however, it was smooth sailing for Mr. Gandhi.
He moved the adoption of a policy of progressive non-

THE CLOUDS GATHER 57
ciation of titles bestowed by the Government and with the
triple boycott (namely, boycott of legislatures, law-courts and
educational institutions) and would end in non-payment of
taxes. This resolution was carried by a large majority,
1,855 votes out of 2,728 being in his favour.
The resolutions of the Special Congress at Calcutta came
up for consideration at the regular annual session held at
Nagpur in December, 1920, under the presidency of the
veteran Congress leader from Madras, Mr. Vijayaraghava-
chariar. Mr. Das and his followers mustered strong at
Nagpur hoping to cross swords with Mr. Gandhi once again.
But through the latter's tactful handling of the situation an
understanding was arrived at between him and Mr. Das.
The boycott of the legislatures, to which Mr. Das was chiefly
opposed, was no longer a live issue, as the elections had
already taken place. It was, therefore, possible to persuade
Mr. Das to come to an agreement. When this was done,
the non-co-operation resolution was ratified with practical
unanimity, though Pandit Malaviya, Mrs. Besant, Mr.
Jinnah and Mr. B. C. Pal remained irreconcilable.
Besides ratifying the resolution on progressive non-
co-operation, including the boycott of legislatures, law courts
and educational institutions, the Nagpur Congress took a
very important step in altering the Constitution of the Indian
National Congress. Hitherto, the goal of the Congress, as
defined in the Constitution, had been 'Self-Government
within the British Empire.' This had antagonised all those
Congressmen who believed in the severance of the British
connection or who refused to be tied down to the Empire.
To enable the Left-Wingers to return to the Congress fold,
the goal of the Congress was declared to be 'Swaraj' (which
means literally self-rule) and it was left to individual Con-
gressmen to define 'Swaraj' in their own way. Mr. Gandhi
however, defined 'Swaraj' to mean 'Self-Government within
the Empire, if possible—and outside, if necessary.'
Before the Nagpur Congress the machinery of the Congress
had been a loose one. There were branches only in the big
cities and throughout the year, no work was done according
to a systematic plan. At Nagpur, it was decided to re-organise

58 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
the Congress on a country-wide basis. The smallest unit
would be the Village Congress Committee. Several such
Committees would combine to form a Union Congress Com-
mittee. Then there would be formed in succession—sub-
divisional (also called Taluka or Tahsil), district, provincial
and All-India Congress Committees. The All-India Congress
Committee would be a body of about 350 members consisting
of representatives from the different provinces. This
Committee would elect a Working Committee of 15 members
which would be the Supreme Executive of the Congress for
the whole country. Further, the provinces were re-organised
on a linguistic basis. For instance, the Madras Presidency
was divided into Andhra, which is Telegu-speaking and
Tamil-Nadu, which is Tamil-speaking. The basis of the new
Congress Constitution was of a democratic and parliamentary
character. Besides setting up a new Constitution, the Nagpur
Congress laid down a definite plan of work for the coming
year.
Regarding the means to be followed by the Congress for
attaining Swaraj, a change was made in the Constitution.
Hitherto the Congress had been tied down to ‘constitutional’
means, but in future the Congress could adopt ‘all peaceful
and legitimate’ means. This change had to be made in
order to enable the Congress to resort to non-co-operation,
which could be regarded as unconstitutional. Regarding
both the goal and the means, the decision of the Nagpur
Congress represented the golden mean between the views of
the Right-Wingers like Pandit Malaviya and Mr. Jinnah and
the youthful Left-Wingers who swamped the Congress for
the first time in 1920. The latter desired the goal of the
Congress to be complete independence to be attained by all
possible means. It was Mr. Gandhi, however, who by virtue
of his tremendous influence and popularity was able to keep
the Left-Wingers at bay. The Constitution that was adopted
at Nagpur and which holds good even to-day, was practically
his own draft. A year before, at Amritsar, he had been author-
ised by the Congress to revise the existing Constitution of that
body.
Among the other resolutions adopted were those relating

THE CLOUDS GATHER 59
to the revival of hand-spinning and hand-weaving, removing
of untouchability¹ among the Hindus and the collection of a
fund of ten million rupees in memory of the late Lokamanya
Tilak. (The idea of bringing back into use the ancient
spinning-wheel in order to produce cloth as a cottage industry
had struck Mr. Gandhi a year before). While the above resolu-
tions were all of a useful or beneficial character, there was
one resolution which must be regarded as a great blunder.
That was the decision to wind up the British Branch of the
Indian National Congress and stop publication of its organ,
the paper India. With the carrying into effect of this resolu-
tion, the only centre of propaganda which the Congress had
outside India was shut down.
The Nagpur Congress, like the Calcutta Congress, was a
great triumph for Mr. Gandhi. It was his Constitution and
his plan of work that was adopted there. The gathering was
an unprecedented one, twenty thousand people attending the
Congress. Public enthusiasm was at a very high pitch and
among the distinguished visitors were two Labour members
of the British Parliament, Mr. Ben Spoor and Col. Wedgwood.
The Nagpur Congress was an important landmark in the
history of the Indian Nationalist Movement. It stood for a
complete break with the Moderates, but it did not represent
a complete victory for the Extremists. The latter as we shall
see subsequently, would have to work for many years before
they could bring the Congress round to their point of view.
Considered objectively, the plan which Mr. Gandhi placed
before the Congress and the country was not something
altogether new in the recent history of India. The fight
which the people of Bengal had waged against the Govern-
ment as a protest against the partition of their province in
1905 by the then Viceroy, Lord Curzon, had many features
in common with the war of non-violent non-co-operation
started in 1920 under the leadership of Mr. Gandhi. In 1905,
Bengal had resorted to the boycott of British goods and of
state-owned educational institutions and there had simul-
taneously been a revival of national industries and a growth of
national schools and colleges, free from state interference of
¹ This is explained later on.

60 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
every kind. Moreover, leaders like Mr. B. C. Pal had refused
to give evidence before British law courts on the ground that
they refused to recognise their jurisdiction. Sri Arabindo
Ghosh, the leader of the Extremist section of the Nationalist
Movement in Bengal in those days had compared this policy
with the policy of the Irish Sinn Fein Party. Several decades
earlier, the country had witnessed another movement which
could also be regarded as a precursor of Mr. Gandhi's non-
co-operation. Before scientists in Europe learnt to produce
synthetic indigo, Bengal was an important supplier of indigo.
The indigo plantations in those days were owned by Britishers
and these foreign landlords were oppressive and brutal in
their behaviour towards the tenants. When their brutality
became unbearable, the tenants in Jessore and Nadia took the
law into their own hands. They refused to pay rent, stopped
cultivating indigo and made it impossible for the British
landlords to live there and terrorise them. (A graphic
description of these incidents can be found in the book
Nil-darpan of the well-known Bengali writer, Dinabandhu
Mitra.) Thus the people had already learnt to rid themselves
of oppression through their own exertions, where they found
that the Government neglected its duty.
It is a well-known fact that Mr. Gandhi had in his earlier
life been considerably influenced by the teachings of Jesus
Christ and the ideas of Leo Tolstoy. It cannot therefore be
claimed that he was altogether original in his ideas or novel
in his practice. But his real merit was a twofold one. He
translated the teachings of Christ and the ideas of Tolstoy
and Thoreau into actual practice and demonstrated that it
was possible to fight for liberty without resorting to violence.
Secondly, he used 'non-co-operation' not for remedying local
grievances, but for winning national freedom and he well-nigh
demonstrated that it was possible to paralyse the civil adminis-
tration of a foreign Government thereby and bring the Govern-
ment to its knees. A happy combination of factors helped to
bring Mr. Gandhi to the forefront in 1920. The attempted
revolution during the Great War had failed and the Revolu-
tionary Party had been crushed. There was consequently no
possibility of another revolution in 1920. Nevertheless, the

THE CLOUDS GATHER 61
country wanted a bold and vigorous policy on the part of
the Congress and the only alternative was a movement like
the one which Mr. Gandhi started. Secondly, the death of
Lokamanya Tilak on the eve of the Calcutta Congress removed
from the field the only possible rival of Mr. Gandhi. Thirdly,
as a result of his long and careful preparation, Mr. Gandhi
was fully prepared to assume the undisputed leadership of
the Indian National Congress in 1920. Through ascetic
discipline he had equipped himself for a life of suffering and
during the period of his apprenticeship in Indian politics,
from 1914 to 1920, he had been able to gather round him a
band of loyal and trusted followers. Fourthly, he had
acquired experience in the use of the weapon of 'Satyagraha.'
Though his movement against the Rowlatt Bills in 1919 had
proved to be abortive, he had won considerable success in
South Africa. Before 1919 he had occasion, moreover, to
make use of Satyagraha five times in India with very good
results. Last but not least, he had gathered round his head
a halo of saintliness which was of inestimable value to him
in a country where the people revere the saint more than the
millionaire or the Governor.
In spite of the democratic constitution of the Indian
National Congress, at Nagpur, Mr. Gandhi emerged as the
virtual Dictator of the Congress. He was, moreover, spon-
taneously acclaimed by the people as Mahatma (meaning
literally a high-souled man or a saint). That was the highest
tribute that the Indian people could give him.
Throughout the year 1919, lightning and thunder had
raged in the political sky of India—but towards the end of
the year the clouds lifted and the Amritsar Congress seemed
to herald an era of peace and quiet. But the promise of
Amritsar was not fulfilled. Once again the clouds began to
gather and towards the end of 1920 the sky was dark and
threatening. With the new year came whirlwind and storm.
And the man who was destined to ride the whirlwind and
direct the storm was Mahatma Gandhi.

CHAPTER II
THE STORM BREAKS (1921)
THE defection of the Moderates from the Congress was res-
ponsible for lowering to some extent the intellectual level of
that body. But this loss was more than compensated by the
rallying of the masses round the Congress banner. Moreover,
Mahatma Gandhi did get as his trusted colleagues some
veteran Congressmen whose reputation stood high in the
country and who now renounced their professional work in
order to give their whole time to the Congress. Mr. C. R.
Das,¹ the leader of the Calcutta Bar, who had already made a
name in Indian politics as also in Bengali literature, gave up
his princely income and plunged into the Non-co-operation
Campaign. From Allahabad came Pandit Motilal Nehru, the
leader of the Allahabad Bar, who also gave up his professional
work. He was joined by his son—Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru—
also an advocate by profession, who was destined to make a
name for himself in the days to come. From the Punjab,
Lala Lajpat Rai, the uncrowned king of that province who
had been a lawyer in his earlier life, came forward to join
the Mahatma. From the Bombay Presidency, the Mahatma
got the support of the Patel brothers, Mr. Vithalbhai and
Mr. Vallabhbhai, both advocates by profession—and also
Mr. N. C. Kelkar of Poona, who was the successor of the
late Lokamanya Tilak in Maharashtra (the southern and
eastern portion of Bombay Presidency). The leaders of the
Central Provinces who joined the Mahatma were Dr. Moonje,
an eye-physician and Mr. Abhyankar, an advocate. The leader
of Bihar was Mr. Rajendra Prasad, who renounced a fat
income and a most promising career at the Patna Bar in
order to work for the Congress. From the Tamil-speaking
¹ So great was the popularity of Mr. C. R. Das at the time that he was
spontaneously given the title of ‘Deshbandhu’ by the people. ‘Deshbandhu’
means literally ‘friend of the country’.
62

. THE STORM BREAKS 63
portion of Madras Presidency came Mr. Rajagopalachari, Mr.
A. Rangaswami Iyengar and Mr. Satyamurti, and from the
Telegu-speaking portion Mr. Prakasam, all lawyers by pro-
fession. On the supreme executive of the Congress there also
sat the Ali brothers—Moulana Mohammed and Moulana
Shaukat Ali—Moulana Abul Kalam Azad, one of the most
learned of the Moslem divines and Dr. Ansari of Delhi—all of
whom represented the new awakening among the Indian
Moslems. Thus it will be seen that it was a very good team
that Mahatma Gandhi was able to collect at the outset of his
campaign.
Among those who gave up their professional work in
response to the appeal of the Congress, the lawyers played a
most important part. The example of lawyer-princes like
Deshbandhu Das and Pandit Motilal Nehru was followed by
lesser lights among the lawyer-fraternity throughout India
and as a result, the Congress ranks were replenished by a
large number of whole-time workers of standing and influence.
The appeal of the Congress for boycott of law-courts met with
a fair measure of success. While a large number of lawyers
gave up their practice for good, there was, on the other
hand, an intensive campaign to dissuade litigants from
approaching British law-courts and persuade them to settle
their disputes by arbitration. As a matter of fact, arbitration-
boards under the control of the Congress, came into
existence all over the country and owing to their efforts the
Government revenue from litigation was considerably reduced.
Along with the boycott of law-courts, a campaign was started
for promoting temperance and stopping the use of intoxicants
of all kinds: The success of this campaign was remarkable
throughout India and in many provinces the excise revenue
(that is, the revenue from the trade in liquor and other
intoxicants) was reduced to one-third of what it formerly
was. In some provinces, as in Bihar, the Government felt
obliged to conduct a campaign for popularising the use of
liquor and other intoxicants in order to increase their revenue.
The temperance movement was exceedingly popular among
the masses and it fulfilled a moral as well as an economic
purpose, while it caused considerable embarrassment to the

64 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
Government. This movement was accompanied by a cam-
paign for the removal of untouchability. In certain parts of
India, especially in the south, some castes like sweepers,
scavengers, etc., had been treated as untouchables. That is
to say, the other castes would not dine with them, would
not take food or drink served by them and in some places,
would not allow them to enter the temples. This custom
was a factor working against the solidarity of the Indian
people and from the moral and human standpoint, was
quite unjustifiable. It was therefore but natural that when
the Congress resolved to launch a campaign for winning
political freedom for India, it should also seek to emanci-
pate the masses from the shackles of social bondage of every
kind
In order to afford some measure of economic relief to the
masses, the Congress advocated the boycott of foreign cloth
and the revival of hand-spinning and hand-weaving on a
large scale. The idea of boycotting foreign cloth was not a
new one—since the cry of boycott of British cloth had been
first raised in Bengal as early as 1905. The revival of hand-
weaving was also not a new proposal, since the Indian hand-
loom industry had held its own against the competition of
foreign and Indian mills. But the idea of reviving hand-
spinning, which had practically gone out of use, was a novel
and a daring one. It was difficult at first to find the men or
women who could teach others to spin. The Mahatma,
who was himself a good spinner arranged to turn out batches
of men and women who themselves could spin and teach
spinning. Within a short time thousands of men and women
were sent out all over the country, including the remotest
villages, to teach the villagers how to spin. It was also difficult
at first to get or buy spinning-wheels. They had to be manu-
factured in the cities and sent out to the villages, till the
village carpenters learned how to make them once again.
The cloth woven in hand-looms out of hand-spun yarn was
called 'Khadi' or 'Khaddar' and was more coarse than
mill-made cloth. As the production of this cloth began to
increase, it automatically became the uniform of all Congress-
men in India. They were required to set an example to the

THE STORM BREAKS 65
people by voluntarily wearing coarse ‘Khadi’ and discarding
fine mill-made cloth.
To undertake the above work, both men and money were
required. The Mahatma therefore appealed to the nation
for ten million members for the Congress and a fund of ten
million rupees (13½ rupees = one pound approximately).
The response to this appeal proved to be most encouraging
but in order to go round collecting money and enlisting
members, an initial band of workers was necessary. This
band of workers had to be supplied by the student com-
munity and the year 1921 therefore opened with an extensive
campaign for the boycott of schools and colleges. Students
responded to the appeal in large numbers and the response
was the greatest in Bengal where the imagination of the
youths had been stirred by the colossal sacrifice made by
Deshbandhu C. R. Das. It was these student-workers who
carried the message of the Congress to all corners of the
country, who collected funds, enlisted members, held meet-
ings and demonstrations, preached temperance, established
arbitration-boards, taught spinning and weaving and en-
couraged the revival of home industries. Without them, all
the influence of Mahatma Gandhi would not have carried the
country very far.
There has been much criticism of the policy of withdrawing
students from educational institutions in 1921. Nevertheless,
if one dispassionately reviews the situation in the country in
1920-21, the conclusion will be irresistible that the Congress
had no option in the matter, if it desired its resolutions to be
translated into action. It should also be stated that though
originally the Congress did not take in hand the task of
establishing ‘national’ institutions, later on such institutions
were started all over the country. Those students who had
withdrawn from state-owned or state-controlled institutions
in a spirit of non-co-operation but who desired to continue
their studies under more salutary conditions, could join the
newly-started national institutions and continue their studies.
Such institutions were started in Bombay, Ahmedabad (in
Bombay Presidency), Poona (in Bombay Presidency), Nagpur
(in Central Provinces), Benares (in the United Provinces),
E

66 THE INDIAN STRUGGLE
Patna (in Bihar), Calcutta and Dacca (in Bengal). Some of
these were for literary education, while others were for
technical or medical education—but spinning was compulsory
in all of them. In many places there were separate institutions
for girls. Many of these institutions still exist and some of
them are in a flourishing condition. Besides these educa-
tional institutions, another set of institutions spontaneously
grew up all over India. These were called ‘Ashramas.’ Built
on the model of the hermitages of old, they were homes for
the whole-time political workers. New recruits were also
trained there and the local office of the Congress would often
be housed in the same premises. The Ashramas also served
sometimes as centres for spinning and weaving. From these
centres, raw cotton and yarn would be distributed among the
spinners and weavers and would be received back as yarn
and cloth respectively. In many Ashramas there would also
be a reading-room and a library for the use of the Congress
workers and of the local public.
In the programme of progressive non-co-operation adopted
at Nagpur in December, 1920, there was, besides the triple
boycott, an item regarding the renunciation of titles conferred
by—and resignation of all posts held under—the Government.
A comparatively large number of men gave up their titles
but an insignificant number resigned their jobs and among
the latter was myself. I had passed the Indian Civil Service
in England in 1920, but finding that it would be impossible
to serve both masters at the same time—namely the British
Government and my country—I resigned my post in May
1921, and hurried back to India with a view to taking my
place in the national struggle that was then in full swing. I
reached Bombay on July 16th and the same afternoon I
obtained an interview with Mahatma Gandhi. My object
in seeking the interview was to get from the leader of the
campaign I was about to join, a clear conception of his plan
of action. During the last few years I had made some study
of the methods and tactics employed by revolutionary leaders
in other parts of the world and in the light of that knowledge
I wanted to understand the Mahatma’s mind and purpose.
I remember vividly the scene of that afternoon. On arriving

THE STORM BREAKS 67
at Mani Bhuvan, the usual residence of the Mahatma in
Bombay, I was ushered into a room covered with Indian
carpets. Almost in the centre, facing the door, sat the
Mahatma surrounded by some of his closest followers. All
were clad in home-made Khadi. As I entered the room, I
felt somewhat out of place in my foreign costume and could
not help apologising for it. The Mahatma received me with
his characteristic hearty smile and soon put me at ease
and the conversation started at once. I desired to obtain a
clear understanding of the details—the successive stages—of
his plan, leading on step by step to the ultimate seizure of
power from the foreign bureaucracy. To that end I began to
heap question upon question and the Mahatma replied with
his habitual patience. There were three points which needed
elucidation. Firstly, how were the different activities con-
ducted by the Congress going to culminate in the last stage
of the campaign, namely, the non-payment of taxes? Secondly,
how could mere non-payment of taxes or civil disobedience
force the Government to retire from the field and leave us
with our freedom? Thirdly, how could the Mahatma promise
‘Swaraj’ (that is, Home Rule) within one year—as he had
been doing ever since the Nagpur Congress? His reply to the
first question satisfied me. The response to his appeal for
ten million members and ten million rupees having been
found to be satisfactory, he had proceeded to the next item
in his plan—namely, the boycott of foreign cloth and the
propagation of home-made Khadi. During the next few
months, his efforts would be concentrated on the Khadi
campaign. And he expected that the Government would
take the initiative in attacking the Congress, the moment it
realised that the peaceful constructive activities of the Congress
were proving to be successful. When the Government did
so, the time would come for disobeying governmental decrees
and marching to prison. The prisons would before long be
filled to overflowing and then would come the last stage of
the campaign—namely, the non-payment of taxes.
The Mahatma’s replies to the other two questions were
not convincing. I asked him if he expected that the boycott
movement would create so much distress in Lancashire that